If I Have To Go
by Misz.Ransom.Loves.Rob
Summary: A version of Edward leaving Bella. On-lookers pov. I will give it it's rating because I find it depressing & I just want it to be safe. R&R. Thanks I know this isn't a good summary.


If I Have To Go

_**Prologue, If I have to go- Edward**_

_**And if I have to go, will you remember me?**_

_**Will you find someone else, while I'm away?**_

_**There's nothing for me, in this world full of strangers**_

_**It's all someone else's idea**_

_**I don't belong here, and you can't go with me**_

_**You'll only slow me down**_

_**Until I send for you, don't wear your hair that way**_

_**If you cannot be true, I'll understand**_

_**Tell all the others, you'll hold in your arms**_

_**That I said I'd come back for you**_

_**I'll leave my jacket to keep you warm**_

_**That's all that I can do**_

_**And if I have to go, will you remember me?**_

_**Will you find someone else, while I'm away?**_

_**-A song by Tom Waits**_

Edward sat on his bedroom floor, turned away from everything. He didn't hear the troubled whispers of his family downstairs, didn't notice when Carlisle came and stood in the doorway, didn't notice when Carlisle went back downstairs, he didn't see the light fade and turn into darkness, he didn't see anything. He sat like this for hours, until morning. Alice came and sat down next to him.

"It's time to go." She said. What Alice meant was that it was time to go to school, but that isn't what Edward heard.

"I know." He said.

Alice's face went blank, she saw Edward telling Bella he didn't love her.

"Edward don't… it will kill her if you leave."

"That's not your decision Alice." He barked, "Pack what you want to take. I'll tell that to the others, Carlisle will have us removed from Forks high."

If Alice could have cried she would have, instead she let out a broken breath.

"You're choosing wrong." She told Edward and then went downstairs to tell the others that they were leaving.

Jasper wasn't surprised; he had been feeling Edward's emotions for the past few hours, or rather Edward's emptiness.

Carlisle and Esme were upset that their son could be affected like this. Emmett was hurting for his brother and trying to get through to Rosalie. Rosalie was, as normal, bitter. Out of his family Alice was the most distraught, she had seen that Edward was considering leaving, but not seen that he actually would. She loved Bella like a sister, Bella was the only friend Alice had had for years and Alice was upset. The feelings of Edward's family didn't affect Edward. Edward wouldn't be swayed.

Everyone was ready within a few hours. Furniture was removed, bags were packed and the house was left empty. Edward was once again sitting in his room.

"Edward? Are you going on foot or coming with us in the car?" Carlisle, who had once again come to stand in the doorway, asked his son with the utmost gentility.

"I have something to do." Edward relied, tonelessly.

Carlisle didn't speak again; instead he went downstairs and left with all his family. Emmett sat with Rosalie in his Jeep, Rosalie wore an 'I told you so' expression, Alice and Jasper went in Rosalie's car, Alice silent all the while, and Esme and Carlisle went in Carlisle's Mercedes.

Edward waited until the end of Bella's school day and then he went round to her house. He had planned the words in his head, lots and lots of words, for he expected that she wouldn't believe him. He listened and when he was certain that she wasn't in her room he climbed through the window. He removed a picture of himself and Bella, he removed all the gifts that he had bought her; he removed every trace of himself and his family. The material things he hid underneath the mattress, but although he wished he could, he couldn't remove her memories. He noticed a shirt that lay discarded on the floor and picked it up, cradling it to himself, he inhaled, smelling her scent. He would keep this, because he knew that he would never try to erase his memories of Bella. He folded the shirt into his big palm so that she wouldn't notice that he had it and then followed her scent.

He found her reading, in the bit of forest behind her house and he walked up to her silently. She saw him and dropped her book, running to embrace him. He didn't hold her for he knew that if he did he wouldn't be able to bring himself to say it.

"Where were you?" She asked, her voice full of concern. He didn't answer.

She let go and stepped back, looking at his face. She had seen that there was something not right.

"What's wrong?" She asked.

"Bella… we're leaving."

She smiled misunderstanding.

"Relax Edward, I don't mind. Where are we going? Really I don't mind leaving Forks."

"You can't come with us Bella." He said.

Bella couldn't breathe.

"You mean… you don't want me?" She choked.

"You're not good for me Bella." He said.

"If that's what you want." She whispered.

He was stunned; fooling her had been so easy. He wanted to say something else but couldn't. He ran away and didn't stop until he was too far to go back. It was only then that he allowed himself to feel again. He let out a cry that sounded animalistic, only no animal had eves hurt this much. He clung feebly to Bella's shirt, grasping it weakly in both of his hands and allowed himself to feel all the pain of being torn to pieces.

_**The house with nobody in it**_

_**Whenever I walk to Suffern along the Erie track  
I go by a poor old farmhouse with its shingles broken and black.  
I suppose I've passed it a hundred times, but I always stop for a minute  
And look at the house, the tragic house, the house with nobody in it.**_

I never have seen a haunted house, but I hear there are such things;  
That they hold the talk of spirits, their mirth and sorrowings.  
I know this house isn't haunted, and I wish it were, I do;  
For it wouldn't be so lonely if it had a ghost or two.

This house on the road to Suffern needs a dozen panes of glass,  
And somebody ought to weed the walk and take a scythe to the grass.  
It needs new paint and shingles, and the vines should be trimmed and tied;  
But what it needs the most of all is some people living inside.

If I had a lot of money and all my debts were paid  
I'd put a gang of men to work with brush and saw and spade.  
I'd buy that place and fix it up the way it used to be  
And I'd find some people who wanted a home and give it to them free.

Now, a new house standing empty, with staring window and door,  
Looks idle, perhaps, and foolish, like a hat on its block in the store.  
But there's nothing mournful about it; it cannot be sad and lone  
For the lack of something within it that it has never known.

But a house that has done what a house should do,  
a house that has sheltered life,  
That has put its loving wooden arms around a man and his wife,  
A house that has echoed a baby's laugh and held up his stumbling feet,  
Is the saddest sight, when it's left alone, that ever your eyes could meet.

So whenever I go to Suffern along the Erie track  
I never go by the empty house without stopping and looking back,  
Yet it hurts me to look at the crumbling roof and the shutters fallen apart,  
For I can't help thinking the poor old house is a house with a broken heart.

_**-A poem by Joyce Kilmer**_

_AN// Well, that was depressing! The last poem might sound off topic but I'm sure you understand that I was using 'the house' to be as Edward and Bella are._


End file.
